One of my neighbors killed himself last month. I imagine that’s pretty common in my neighborhood. I live in a retirement community, and I like to think that many of us will choose to take charge of our own demises.
When you don’t take charge, the American way of death is god-awful. All the professionals in charge of that sort of thing seem to think their goal is to force you to linger as long as possible. I often think of having DNR tattooed on my sternum.
I have some pills on hand should I ever choose to hasten my departure. And a scalpel. One of my favorite words is exsanguinate, and I think it would really be very cool for my obituary to read “she exsanguinated.”
But the man who killed himself didn’t use pills or slit his wrists. As I have learned since then, people of his gender tend to use a firearm. Preferably a hand gun. But for some bizarre reason he chose to use a shotgun. Makes a terrible mess and an awful noise.
I don’t know how you could even kill yourself with a long gun. I mean I suppose you put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger with your toe.
Anyhow, since you can Google anything these days I Googled, “How do you kill yourself with a shotgun?” What I immediately got was a dozen replies from suicide prevention folks. Oh my God! One of those people had actually founded an organization to prevent people from taking charge of their own demises. He wrote that he himself had attempted suicide eleven times. Naw. If he had been serious, he’d have gotten it right after three or four tries.
Then this last week, I had occasion to think about death in another context. Someone asked me how I happened to be Episcopalian, coming from generations of Methodists. I had to think about that for a minute. Then I remembered. I boy I went out with a few times in college took me to visit his church one Sunday morning. This was a common thing. To take a girl to church on a Sunday morning date and then back to the dorm for Sunday dinner.
Anyway, I, a descendant of a great cloud of Methodist witnesses was instantly converted into a romantic Anglican. The liturgy. The kneeling. The language of the 1928 BCP. The women all wore hats. For me, seeing men in three-piece suits was always a spiritual experience anyway.
Actually, it turned out, I was not quite that superficial or trite. I became a devout high churchwoman for many decades. Church was the center of my community activities, my service, and my social life. I raised my children in the church and they always got the lovely certificates for never missing Sunday school.
Though I am no longer a person of traditional faith, church-going is a part of my cultural heritage. I no longer literally believe the Bible stories. But I believe those stories embody some very real truths.
Anyhow, I began to think about how that sweet boy’s invitation to church changed my life and those of my children. At that time I didn’t think of him as sweet. He was tall and handsome and took me to fraternity dances. Superficial and trite.
So I decided to find him. You can Google anything.
I Googled everything. I could not find him. It was crazy. I knew what year he was born, what year he graduated from college, his hometown, the names of his parents. Nothing.
I kept after it. I was diligent. What I eventually discovered was that he has been dead for over forty years.
I was imagining him a doting great grandfather, retired after a pleasant career as a popular literature professor. I imagined that I would email him and ask after his grandchildren and tell him thanks for taking me to church one Sunday morning many years ago.